He sat upon the stairs ascending to the threshold of the House of Fire, taking slow sips from a glass of some unidentified beverage Nerdanel had earlier brought him; and watched his youngest brother play.

The dark-haired child was waving a stick about, walking back and forth across the garden, as if one in a cage who was devising a way for escape. He had been doing this for quite a while now. The lack of diversity in his movements bored Maglor slightly. But he had been expressedly enjoined to keep watch over the boy, as his mother had fast become aware of her most recent son's restlessness and capacity for unexpected and creative mischief under his calm, serious little face.

The sour drink had acquired a strange, sligthly nauseating taste from being exposed to the warm rays of Laurelin, and he grimaced as he set it down upon the stone, still half-filled with a pinkish tainted liquid.

Presently, the boy had engaged in the activity of standing under the shelter of some trees, and used his stick in a manner that distinctively reminded Maglor of fending off an invisible adversary's blows.

Perplexed, he called out. "Hey, Curvo! What are you doing?"

Startled, the child looked up, and immediately halted his play, his body and face regaining the usual serious blankness, slight boredom they wore.

He did not answer at first, only looked to the stick in his hand as if he had been until then unaware of holding it.

"Nothing," he finally said, and shrugged as he walked back into the house.




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